Tying science research to economic gain is industrial-strength stupid

One of the reasons for American dominance during the last 60 years is its technological superiority, a superiority that’s fueled by basic research.

It does a country good.

A century ago, as scientists teased out the secrets of the atom, they did not know the forces binding atoms would lead to the most powerful weapons man has known. Nor did scientists in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, working with Fourier transforms, spintronics and the Giant magnetoresistive effect, realize they were paving the way for the original iPhone and all other smartphones, a $150 billion market.

That’s because this is basic science. The implications of pushing back at the frontiers of knowledge are not always clear, but inevitably expanding human understanding of the natural world has benefits and economic gain.

Someone should tell that to our leaders.

A U.S. Representative from Texas, Lamar Smith, recently proposed that research funded by the federal government be “In the interests of the United States to advance the national health, prosperity, or welfare, and to secure the national defense by promoting the progress of science.” Smith is chairman of the House science committee.

Let’s be clear what this means. It is the aim of Smith and others with like-minded views that science not be directed by scientists, through the peer review process for grants, but rather by political and economic whims. This is about as smart as having journalists design and build rockets.

But it’s not just the United States. In Canada, the president of that country’s National Research Council recently uttered some scary words. “Scientific discovery is not valuable unless it has commercial value,” John McDougall said. In Britain research proposals must include a Pathways to Benefit statement.

Sorry, this is stupid.

Arguably the greatest scientific discovery in Houston history occurred when a British scientist visited a Rice laboratory to try and recreate some of the complex compounds he observed in the near empty, vast spaces between stars. Of what possible benefit could that be to anyone? Well, their experimentation led to the discovery of buckyballs, a new form of carbon, and was a key moment in the launching of nanotechnology. Which is now a $100 billion industry, and growing.

There are plenty of avenues the federal government has to direct research. NOAA spends funds on research to develop better hurricane science and models. The Defense agencies spend many billions of dollars on military, aviation and surveillance technology.

The few billions the National Science Foundation and a handful of other federal agencies spend on untethered, blue-skies research is a pittance. But it will almost certainly pay the biggest dividends down the road. That we cannot explicitly state them today should not matter for a nation that wants to be around for the long haul.